What God Doesn’t Explain

Following is an excerpt from my response to this comment from smeagain, which I’ve made into a short blog post as it pretty much summarizes why I’m an atheist (as opposed to some other variety of ex-Fundamentalist-Christian). It doesn’t really say anything I haven’t said before, but it makes a pretty decent summary.

I have come to many of the same conclusions as Micah, though I don’t call myself an atheist, I can no longer call myself a Christian. It still feels weird saying it.

All of this aside, I can’t find a way to explain away God. Sure maybe life on earth evolved independently, difficult to accept but easier than zapped into being by the creator. The whole universe exploding into existence from “the big bang”. but where did all that energy come from.

To me the more science discovers, the more we see the nature of
God.

To me, the more science discovers, the less is explained by the existence of God.

As you say, “where did all that energy come from”—the big bang can’t have been the very start, and I don’t know anyone who thinks it was. It’s simply “as far back as we can trace”. Something must have been before it. Something must have had no beginning. To minds that have developed in a universe where all things have both beginnings and ends, it’s boggling. And yet, to say that God is that “something” explains nothing. Why isn’t God subject to the same “beginning” that everything else must be subject to? It’s certain that there is something eternal, but answering “where did the universe find its beginning?” with “God” doesn’t actually answer anything; it simply shifts it to “where did God find Its beginning?”. You can assert that “God had no beginning”, but you can just as easily assert that “the universe had no beginning”, or the “underlying fabric of matter-spawning quanta”, or whatever. To the question, “where does all this come from?”, the answer “a Magic Man did it” is not an answer. It’s simply another question in disguise.

That’s why I’m an atheist: there are no remaining questions for me to which God is any kind of reasonable answer. It’s true, this leaves a number of questions to which I now have no answers of any sort; I just think that admitting that the answers haven’t been found is more intellectually honest than substituting made-up ones.

That said, I don’t have anything against belief in a God, as a concept in itself: I don’t even think it’s a “superstition” so much as a sometimes-convenient, if illusory, abstraction. It’s when folks take this God for whom no evidence exists, and add detailed knowledge about His character and what He wants us to do and not to do, for which no credible source exists—that’s when I start to become concerned.

9 thoughts on “What God Doesn’t Explain”

Micah Cowan That’s why I’m an atheist: there are no remaining questions for me to which God is any kind of reasonable answer. It’s true, this leaves a number of questions to which I now have no answers of any sort; I just think that admitting that the answers haven’t been found is more intellectually honest than substituting made-up ones.

Very well stated. Very well stated, indeed!

One of the hardest concepts to explain to theists is how “I don’t know” can be a sufficient answer to me. I recognize the convenience of God-of-the-Gaps; it always fits so perfectly. Not to mention a certain comfort in being able to say something when posed with a difficult task. Yet whenever I try to unpack this “God-answer” any further—it reduces down to three (3) letters of nothingness.

The difference between my explanation of how the Big Bang occurred—“I don’t know how” is merely more ink on paper for the theist—“I don’t know how God.” Yet that additional word gives us no new information.

I did not make the claim that science proves religion. To use God or religion to explain what you don’t know is by definition mythology. My belief in God is a leap of faith.

Because I believe in God I see the wonders of science as describing the nature of God. Throughout history religion has rejected science if it contradicts its doctrine, my statement was meant distance myself from that practice. Religion should never be used as a tool to guide science, although it has been throughout history and seems to continue today. Trying to use science to disprove religion is not only ridicules it’s an abuse of science, though it seems to be trendy of late.

I am not attempting to evangelize my beliefs. After all you may get great comfort from your belief, I am pointing out how it is not a contradiction to embrace both God and science.

As I said, my belief in God is an leap of faith, but it would also be a leap of faith to believe that there is no God rather than saying “I don’t know”.

Hi, smeagain: to be clear, I wasn’t trying to say that you were claiming that science proves religion, or that you were attempting to evangelize your beliefs. I’m simply responding. My main purpose in making a blog post out of the response was mainly that it turned out to be a pretty handy summary of why I’m an atheist (as opposed to an agnostic).

As I said, my belief in God is an leap of faith, but it would also be a leap of faith to believe that there is no God rather than saying “I don’t know”.

Is it a similar leap of faith for me to say that there is no Tooth Fairy, and that Santa Claus is not real? Just because there’s no evidence “one way or the other” doesn’t mean that one conclusion isn’t any more rational than the other. I don’t know—not for certain—but that shouldn’t be my answer. When my kids ask me if Santa’s real, I don’t say “I don’t know”, I say “no” (sorry if that shocks some fun-loving parents who want their kids to believe in Santa; I’ve never felt comfortable lying to my kids about it).

As modern atheists seem to have settled on, the best catchphrase isn’t “There is no God”, but neither is it “I don’t know either way”; it’s “There is probably no God”.

so I haven’t been keeping up on reading the blogs but I popped in and saw this one as a recent post. but I was just wondering, if God is just a magic man and/or type of Santa Claus… why all the fuss in arguing His non-existence? If He truly does not exist why are people so passionate about denying Him? What is the point on your end? people don’t write about denying Santa Claus, because they don’t believe he is real but even if some people do believe in Santa no one spend their time trying to convince them.

…why all the fuss in arguing His non-existence? If He truly does not exist why are people so passionate about denying Him?

Who’s passionate? Not me. As I said in the last paragraph, I don’t have anything against belief in God. Even Richard Dawkins, who is frequently accused of being passionately against belief in God, is actually passionate against fundamentalism and its accompanying blind ignorance, not theism. One of his close friends is an Anglican minister, actually.

I too, like Dawkins, am passionate about ignorance and intellectual complacency, and will happily rant on subjects related to that. But I have no desire to convince the rest of the world that God doesn’t exist, though, like Thomas Jefferson (who believed in God, but not the divinity of Jesus), I’d be happiest if everyone were willing to question what they think they know about God: “Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.”

It’s kind of funny to me that any time I write about atheism, people assume I’m passionate about it, just because I wrote something about it. Actually, I mostly put these things up to point people at, who ask me about why I’m an atheist. And also to give people food for thought (though this article is really just a summary).

Religious fundamentalism, though, is an entirely different question. When beliefs become the source of ignorance, intolerance, and intellectual authoritarianism, when fear of knowledge that contradicts our treasured preconceptions hampers our ability to objectively consider all information, when morality is dictated by distorted writings rather than the whisper of our own heart, so that innocent people are condemned as sinners deserving death, that’s something I have no qualms about getting passionate against.

The thing I can’t get over is no matter what you believe your most likely wrong. Neither side or sides has real evidence in their favor just a wisp of smoke at the end of some imaginary rainbow. We agree that we as humans SHOULD have unalienable rights unless of course you have something I want or you don’t agree with me. Then no matter our belief system we change it to feel better about ourselves.

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.